Promoting Functional Literacy through Cooperative Learning

The effects of cooperative learning strategy manipulations on the enactment and recall of a medical procedure were explored. One hundred and twenty-three college students completed the experiment. During training, participants were randomly assigned to a dyad in one of four conditions: (a) no-strategy, (b) baseline strategy, (c) prompting strategy, and (d) planning strategy. During testing, participants both performed and produced written recalls of the procedure instructions. Test order was counterbalanced within dyad. Training and test performances were videotaped. The planning group produced the best recalls and recalled more conditions of the procedure. The prompting group performed best. Recall of the procedure in all groups was enhanced by prior performance. However, performance was enhanced by prior recall in only two groups. The groups differed also in the nature of the transition from training to testing. Theoretical and applied implications of these findings are discussed.

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